A Much-Needed Vacation
by Daphne B
Summary: After she calls off the wedding, Rayna takes the girls to the Florida Keys on a much-needed vacation, but when Daphne goes missing, the local sheriff is called in to help. John finds he's giving this case a little extra attention, as he feels inexplicably drawn to Ms. Rayna Jaymes. Set between Nashville S3, Eps 10 and 11. Potential spoilers for Bloodline through Ep. 6.
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I started writing this while Nashville and Bloodline were both on hiatus. Waiting for these shows to come back got me thinking (again!) about Eric and Tami Taylor on FNL, my all-time favourite tv couple. This story is just a way to have some fun with that FNL history percolating through a Nashville/Bloodline crossover.

 **CHAPTER 1:**

"Moooooommm." Maddie drew out the three letter word for a good five-second whine. "This is _not_ going to be fun. There's a huge New Year's Eve party and all my friends are going to be there, and I'm totally going to miss it being in the middle of nowhere with you and Daphne."

"Lord but that girl can whine," thought Rayna to herself. To her daughter she said in her most patient voice, "Maddie Conrad. We're goin' to the Florida Keys. We are gettin' away from this crazy media circus. **YOU** said you wanted to get away from the press and the cameras and just have some girl time. We're havin' some girl time. Just the three of us."

"That's right, Maddie," Daphne piped up. "Just the three of us. Girl time. No boys."

That's my sweet baby, Rayna thought. She knew it couldn't last. A few more years and the teenage hormones would kick in. She could only hope that by then Maddie was most of the way through the worst of this angry-adolescent phase so the two of them didn't drive her crazy with it.

"You said you wanted to hang out with us, Maddie," Daphne kept at her sister. "Don't you want to hang out with us. On the BEACH! In January! It's going to be so cool."

Maddie was grudging but sincere in her acquiescence. "I **do** want to hang out. And it will be fun to just be the three of us for a week at the beach. I just hoped we could go the day **after** New Year's instead of before, so I wouldn't have to miss my party."

"I know, sweet girl," Rayna cooed. "But Christmas was hard after everything that happened with Luke. And I just need some space and time away from Nashville. And I need it with my two favorite people in the whole world." Rayna was laughing now, swooping down and wrapping her arms around her daughters, threatening to tickle them. They squealed and then jumped off of Maddie's bed where Rayna had found the girls **not** finishing their packing as she had told them to.

"Get those bags packed, girls. We're goin' to the beach!"

"Yes!" Daphne pumped her right arm up and down in victory, a huge grin on her sweet, round face.

"The car will be here to take us to the airport in TEN MINUTES." Rayna was in full daughter-wrangling mom mode, and loving it.

As she left to get her own suitcases down the stairs, she took one more look back at the girls throwing way too many last-minute items in their suitcases: iPods, iPads, make-up, shorts, more shorts, shirts, more shirts. Rayna just smiled, her huge green eyes getting a bit moist. Her precious daughters. She'd put them through so much drama in the last year, and her heart ached for them. They needed this time away together. The girls were as forgiving as two kids could be, but she had been away too much, touring too much, dealing with too much "Ruke" drama. The girls needed their mama, and she needed them. And she needed to forget about the "wedding of the century" that didn't happen two weeks ago. Not only would this be good, it might even be fun. Bucky was covering everything at Highway 65. The Christmas-New Year's holiday was a slow time for recording anyway. Hell, she might even get to _relax_.

After she'd called off the wedding, the Christmas trip to Australia for the family honeymoon was cancelled as well. She should have taken the girls somewhere then, but she'd been too emotionally raw to think straight. Plus, with the media circus and the last-minute change of life plans, she thought the girls should get to spend Christmas with Teddy and her, hunkered down in their home. Three days after Christmas, she was going crazy being in Nashville, trying to avoid the paparazzi, Luke, her own swirling emotions. She needed to get out of town.

…

A short two-and-a-half-hour flight later, the Jaymes-Conrad-Claybourne women were reveling in the balmy Florida air as they walked out of the Miami-Dade airport. Bucky had arranged for a car to pick them up curbside and drive them to Islamorada where they would be spending the next week enjoying the near-solitude and a much slower pace of life at The Rayburn House inn. It was Tandy's recommendation. She and a "co-worker," had apparently spent an excellent week there about fifteen years ago, though Rayna got the impression Tandy didn't remember much about the inn except what the inside of her room looked like, and how comfortable the bed was. "Uh huh. I'll bet it was the _comfortable mattress_ that was keeping you inside all week," Rayna teased her sister.

"It's a gorgeous resort, Rayna," Tandy had kept talking, pretending not to understand the implication. "The food is amazing. You can get a bungalow away from the other guests. You're a bit out of town, so no traffic driving by or random people just dropping in who might notice you. There's a private beach out front. And the owners are the sweetest couple; they'll take such good care of you."

To keep the press at bay, Tandy booked them in under the name "Patty Davidson," a particularly snobby "mean girl" they had both hated in high school, and made sure that the owners, Sally and Robert Rayburn, knew they needed privacy and a little TLC.

When the hired car pulled into the driveway of the white, two-story clapboard inn, Daphne was the first to exclaim how "awesome!" it was. "Look at the beach! And the palm trees!"

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Rayna smiled and let out a long sigh, until then not realizing she'd been holding her breath. She could already start to feel herself letting go of a year's worth of pent-up anxiety. This was going to be a good week.

…

Sally was there to greet them personally and showed them to one of the two detached cabins that she and Robert had built for guests who needed a little more space or privacy than rooms in the main inn could provide. "We are so happy to have you here" the older woman was warm and, thankfully, not remotely star-struck. "My son Danny serves dinner on the verandah every night between 6 and 9, but if you want us to bring it to you here to cut down on the chances of being recognized by any fans who might be in the main house, you just let us know."

"Thank you so much." Rayna smiled as Sally turned to go. "We so appreciate y'all takin' such good care of us. Your place is just beautiful."

As Sally left, Rayna shut the cabin door, turned to the girls with a mega-watt, stadium show worthy grin and exclaimed, "Are we gonna have fun or what?"

Daphne had already thrown her suitcase on the bed she had picked out next to the window. "Hey," Maddie pouted, "why does Daphne get to be by the window while I have to be next to the closet?"

"Because I'm faster than you," Daphne answered before her mom could say anything. Rayna just shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "you can't argue with that logic," and decided not to intervene further. Maddie would just have to get over being a pill.

Daphne had grabbed one of the brochures off the desk in her and Maddie's room and was flipping through it. "Mom, look! It says they do snorkeling trips every day it's not raining. The next one leaves in 30 minutes. Can we go? Can we go?"

Rayna was laughing. "Yes, baby girl, we can go. But you've got to get sunscreen and a bathing suit on. Maddie, you, too."

"Can't I just sit on the beach while you two go?"

"No, you may not, young lady. We're here as a family and we're gonna have fun. Together." Rayna was doing her best to pretend Maddie wasn't being ridiculous. Surely she'd start behaving like the sweet young woman Rayna knew she could be once they had settled into the place. And Rayna wasn't too worried about them being noticed here. There were 16 other guests, but she didn't guess that many country music fans would be vacationing in the Keys over the holiday break. And if they were, she'd just smile and deal with it.

Twenty minutes later they were down at the dock with Danny, who was joking around with the girls and trying not to flirt too obviously with Rayna. She wasn't really his type—she was too uppity and "polished," for his taste—but damn she was fine. As he was handing out the masks and fins, Rayna politely declined hers. "Just along for the ride," she said.

"Not a swimmer, huh?" Danny asked.

"Not today," she said noncommittally. "Today I'm just here to watch over my girls and make sure they're having fun."

"Well if you're just going out because you want an adult on the boat, I'll be with them the whole time, you know. I can look after them for you."

"I appreciate that; I sure do." Rayna was full-on Southern charm. "But I'm lookin' forward to the boat ride and spending the time with them."

"Suit yourself," Danny said. "I'll bring an extra mask and fins, in case you change your mind."

He showed the girls how to spit in their masks to clear the fog—"Ewww…" they both said as they giggled—and then got the boat engine running and off they went. "You girls ever been snorkeling before?" he asked casually.

"Nope. Never," they replied almost in unison.

"Well you are in for a treat," he said as he gunned the boat to hit some waves especially hard and make the ride that much more exciting. "If we're really lucky, we might see some dolphins." Danny offered a mischievous glance over his shoulder and the girls' eyes got wide as they grinned hopefully at Rayna, delighted by the prospect. "That would be awesome," Daphne beamed.

It was just Rayna, the girls, and a few kids from two other families staying at the inn on this, the second, snorkeling cruise of the day. There were two sisters who were about 19 or 20, Rayna guessed, and a slightly younger but solidly-built boy, Davis, of about 16 or 17. At first Rayna thought they were all three together, but it soon became clear that the sisters had just met Davis while they were all hanging out on the beach. They were open and affable in that way people are when they meet on vacation, but once Davis and Maddie started talking, the older girls lost interest and kept to themselves. And none of the kids seemed to recognize Rayna, which was just fine by her.

In the end, Rayna ended up jumping into the ocean with the girls. They were having such a good time she just had to join them. And Danny was nice, but a little too chatty for her liking at the moment. She left him on the boat while she and Daphne took one of the fish identifier cards Danny provided and tried to find as many different kinds of sea life as they could.

By the time they got back in the boat, Maddie and Davis were hitting it off like a house on fire and mostly ignoring every one else. But since they had been good sports about joining in on some of Rayna and Daphne's fish-identifying expedition, she decided not the press the issue. It was clear, though, that Rayna and Daphne were going to have some competition for Maddie's attention over the next few days since Davis said his family wasn't leaving Islamorada until the day before Rayna and the girls were scheduled to head back to Nashville.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

By the following morning, Rayna and the girls were in full-on vacation mode. They'd slept until almost 10:00 and barely made it to breakfast. From there they decided that a beach vacation required a serious commitment to **the beach**. They grabbed their sunscreen, hats, books, and towels and were sprawled lazily surfside by 11:00.

Rayna was loving it. They spent a good long time just chatting about the girls' school and friends, music, movies, and the other guests—anything and nothing, really—while watching the sea gulls and nibbling on sandwiches Sally had brought down to them. But eventually the girls got restless, so headed into the ocean while Rayna stayed on the sand, half reading a novel she'd picked up at the airport, half watching them splash each other while bobbing in the waves. It was mid- afternoon when her cell phone rang. Rayna glanced at Caller ID then put the phone up to her ear: "Hey, Buck. How's the life of a working man? You good?" She hoped she was keeping the annoyance out of her voice.

"I'm real sorry to have to bother you on your vacation, Ray. You know I wouldn't call if it weren't urgent…. How is the vacation going by the way?" he backtracked.

"Fine, Buck. We're havin' a blast. So what's wrong? You OK?"

"Yeah, Ray." Static was cutting into the line. "I'm fine. But, well, we've got a problem…" More static broke in and garbled his words. Finally she heard, … "so that's gonna be at least three million dollars down the drain if we don't fix this fast."

"Shoot. Buck. You cut out…" The line went dead. She looked at her phone. The battery was juiced, but she had no cell coverage. Damn Horizun. She held the phone up and waved it around in the air. Nothing.

"Hey mom, get off your phone. Your on VAAACAAATION!" Maddie and Daphne were giggling as they yelled at her from atop another wave.

"Hey girls, y'all need to come in for a few minutes while I go inside and call Bucky back." Rayna wasn't comfortable letting the girls stay in the water if she wasn't there to keep an eye on them. They were fine enough swimmers, but not experienced in the ocean. She worried about rip tides.

"But mom, we're having FUN! We'll be careful. Promise!" The girls were not keen to interrupt their good time just so their mom could work during what she had promised would be a Highway 65-free week.

As they were complaining, Danny materialized beside Rayna. "Don't worry, ma'am. I'll keep an eye on them if you need to head inside for something. I won't let them out of my sight."

Rayna weighed her options. Danny seemed nice and responsible enough, even if he did smoke nearly all the time, which she did **not** approve of.

"I hate to impose on you," she said, glancing down at her phone again, hoping Horizun had suddenly started providing decent service in the Keys. What were the odds?

"It's no problem, ma'am. I'm happy to do it." His tone was almost cloying but his face was open and guileless. He glanced at the phone in Rayna's hand. "You can use our landline if you need it. Momma will show you where it is," he gestured up toward the main house.

Rayna thanked Danny and told the girls they had to listen to him while she was gone. "I'll be right back," she promised them.

As she started toward the inn, Davis showed up on the beach. Maddie waved excitedly, and he dove into the waves to swim out to the girls. Rayna turned back to Danny: "Keep a real close eye on that one, yeah?"

"Oh yes ma'am," Danny said solemnly but with a hint of devilishness in his eyes, the barest trace of a smile curling up one side of his mouth.

Twenty minutes later, Rayna hung up with Bucky. This vacation was just not going to plan. She headed back out to the beach and decided to wait until after dinner to tell the girls that they were going to have to spend part of tomorrow by themselves and _not_ swimming in the ocean. Damn that Luke.

….

Tucking them in that night she said, "So listen girls. You know I wanted this week to be just about the three of us and no crazy press or touring or Highway 65 business. Right?"

"But?" Maddie's tone was sharp while Daphne just eyed her warily. Both girls sat back up in their beds.

Rayna sighed, sitting down beside Daphne. " _But_ Luke's people are saying that by calling off the wedding when I did, I 'deliberately and maliciously harmed his image'," Rayna was trying to keep her tone even as she quoted the legalese Bucky had passed on to her this morning, "and they're threatening to sue me if I don't either pay him a lot of money or do some publicity thing his manager arranged that makes him look good, and makes it clear that this is all about me being some kind of _diva_." Rayna was beyond steamed but had dropped into her best Steel Magnolia negotiating voice, the one she'd perfected when telling label heads what they could kiss as she walked out the door. She was determined not to get visibly angry in front of her daughters.

"What?" Maddie exclaimed, her face wrinkling up.

"What are you going to do?" Daphne asked. She laid a hand on her mom's arm and scooted over next to her.

"Well, girls, I really hate to have to do this, but I'm going to have to make a quick trip up to Miami tomorrow to do an interview that Bucky negotiated for me instead of the one Luke's people wanted and ..."

"Nooo." Daphne interjected before Rayna could finish her sentence.

"Mom! You promised no work this week." Now Maddie was angry, slamming her palm down on the bed.

"I know girls. I know." Rayna was emotionally worn out. Damn that Luke. He had found out she was on vacation with the girls, and she knew he was doing this just to get under her skin. Well, mission accomplished.

"I would just pay him and not leave at all if I could, but we can't round up that kind of money right now with Highway 65's finances being what they are. And if I pay him now, he's just gonna find a way to come back for more." Rayna couldn't believe it had come to this. A few weeks ago, she and Luke almost made a life-long commitment to each other. They'd felt genuine affection for each other. How had everything gotten so petty?

"But mom, you didn't call off the wedding to make him look bad… Did you?" Daphne didn't think her mom would do something like that, but she was also learning that grown ups often did things she didn't expect. Or understand.

"No baby girl, I sure didn't. I loved Luke. I really, truly did. But I just couldn't marry him. And that was about us and our relationship. It had nothing to do with _business_." Rayna shook her head and threw up her hands on that last word. Daphne nodded, satisfied and relieved. Maddie just pulled her knees up and buried her chin in them.

"So listen. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to get up early tomorrow and head up to Miami before breakfast. It's just an hour's drive up there, then I've got this quick interview and a meeting with an attorney. At most that will all take two hours. Then I'll jump in the car and be back here in time for lunch. You'll barely have time to know I'm gone!"

Rayna's efforts to downplay the violation of trust that this side trip represented fell on deaf ears. The girls were quiet and avoiding her eyes.

"Hey. Look at me," she said to them softly. "I'm sorry, girls. I know I said 'no work.' And I meant it. But Luke's digging his heels in. I'm gonna make this as short a trip as possible and make this problem go away. If there were any other way, I wouldn't go. You know that right?"

They nodded their heads. "I guess," Maddie mumbled.

"We love you mom," Daphne said, trying to make the best of it.

"I love you, too. Both of you. More than anything in the whole wide world." Rayna stood, pulled Daphne over to Maddie's bed with her, and gathered them both in her arms, holding them for a long time. Damn that Luke.

….

At 6.45 the next morning, the radio alarm went off: "It's sooo complicated, it's driving me insane. It's just a ball and chain." Rayna slammed the "off" button as hard as she could. "You have _got_ to be kidding me," she muttered.

By 7.30, Rayna was showered, dressed and ready to leave. The girls were starting to stir, having heard her moving around.

"Okay, girls. I'm gonna be back in a flash. But while I'm gone, there are a couple of rules, okay?"

They nodded while rubbing their eyes.

"First, no swimming until I get back. I don't want you going into the water when I'm not here." Rayna was firm and looking back and forth between them to make sure they knew she was serious.

"Okay, mom," they both said patiently. Like they didn't know that already!

"Second, Maddie you're in charge, which means you need to keep a _close_ eye on your sister, okay?" Maddie rolled her eyes. "Maddie Conrad…" Rayna said slowly with a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice.

"Okay, mom, I get it. I'm babysitting."

"I'm NOT a baby, Maddie. I'm your sister." Daphne didn't understand why sometimes Maddie loved to hang out with her and other times she made Daphne feel like she was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her. She hoped she wasn't that mean when she got to be a teenager.

"Also, that means no hanging around with Davis."

"What! Mom! Why not?!" This day was just getting worse and worse as far as Maddie was concerned. She gave up the chance to go to the party of the year with her friends for this?

"Because I want you to pay attention to your sister, that's why." After the whole Colt kissing incident, Rayna still didn't completely trust Maddie's judgment. It was entirely possible that she'd start canoodling with Davis and completely forget about Daphne.

"So what, if we run into him at breakfast, I'm just supposed to be like 'Sorry I can't talk to you because my mom's a freak who won't let me take my eyes off of my sister for a second'?" Maddie was in fine teenage form this morning.

"You know what Maddie Conrad," Rayna's tone was sharp, starting to rise to match Maddie's. But she caught herself. She was the adult, and she was not going to be baited into an argument with a surly 15-year-old. Taking a deep breath, she started again. "IF you see Davis out on the verandah during or after breakfast, you can certainly _talk_ with him, so long as Daphne is with you." She paused for effect, looking directly into Maddie's face to make sure she had her full attention. "But you may not bring him back to this cabin. Do you understand?" Rayna flashed on the scene of Maddie and Colt on the couch again and waited for a response.

"Yeah." Maddie muttered.

"Maddie…."

"Yes, I understand. I can talk to him outside with Daphne. I can't bring him back to the cabin. Not that I would anyway." For an international superstar who was practically a sex symbol, her mom could be really uptight sometimes.

"And you are not to leave the grounds of this inn for any reason." She looked at both girls.

"Okay mom." Daphne chirped. It wasn't going to be that big a deal, really. She and Maddie would have breakfast, maybe play some music and swing on the hammocks outside. Then her mom would be back.

"Got it," Maddie sighed.

"Good. I love you both. I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise. And then we're throwing the phones away." Rayna smiled at them, and the girls got up and hugged her.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3:**

After Rayna left, the girls got themselves dressed and headed over to the main house for some of Danny's delicious pancakes and eggs. They lingered over breakfast and managed to score three extra helpings of bacon from Danny, who made a big deal of pretending he was sneaking them something against the rules. After they were so full they could barely move, they made their way to a hammock that was strung between some palm trees in front of the inn and were having fun with a word game they often played. The goal was to come up with the silliest rhymes they could and then to string them together into really bad song lyrics. Kind of like their own version of Mad Libs for musicians. They were dissolving into fits of giggles after Maddie called out "guitar" and Daphne threw back "salad bar." At that moment, Davis sauntered up next to them and sat down beside Maddie on the hammock.

"What's so funny?" he asked, trying to sound smooth while looking directly at Maddie and ignoring Daphne.

Just as Daphne was starting to explain the rhyming game (and hopefully conveying that maybe Davis might want to _take a hike, Mike_ ), Maddie cut her off: "oh, nothing." She blurted it out quickly, tucking a thick tumble of hair behind her ear. "We were just talking." She had stopped giggling but was flashing her best 15-year-old, practiced-in-the-mirror-for-hours flirty smile at the handsome, tanned boy.

"Cool." He nodded, and after a few seconds of awkward teenage silence said, "so there's this, like, awesome deserted cove just up the coast a bit," he pointed vaguely past where the palm trees got dense, marking the edge of the Rayburn House property. "It's really pretty. I bet you'd like it. Wanna go check it out?"

Maddie hesitated. In fact, she _did_ want to go check it out. But not with Daphne in tow. And she didn't want to disobey her mom, but she also thought Daphne was old enough to hang out on a hammock for, like, an hour, with _lots_ of adults around. Honestly, sometimes her mom could be a little over-protective of Daphne just because she was the baby. It wasn't good for her.

"We can't go until after my mom gets back," Daphne announced. She could see the wheels spinning in Maddie's head.

"Oh. Well it's not that far," Davis said. "But it's up to you." He shrugged, gave Maddie a grin, and made like he was going to head over to the cove by himself.

"How far?" Maddie asked.

"Maddie, you heard mom," Daphne warned. She wasn't a goody-goody exactly, but she wanted to hang out with her sister, and she didn't want to do something her mother had told them explicitly _not_ to do. Maddie could always go with Davis later, after their mom was back.

Maddie just shot Daphne a look and turned back to Davis. "Twenty minutes," he said, grinning. "Totally worth it, I promise." He cocked his head a bit in the direction of the beach and stood up. "Wanna take a walk?" he beckoned to Maddie. After a beat, he looked over the older girl's shoulder and said, "You can come too, Daphne."

"Let's just check it out," Maddie said to her sister, suddenly decisive. Going to the cove with Daphne in tow was better than staying here while Davis found someone else to hang out with. "We'll be back before mom; she'll never know. And we won't go in the water." Maddie wasn't going to break that rule; or at least she wasn't going to let Daphne break it. Her rebellion had its limits. "It's not far, just next to this beach, so not even really leaving the property." Maddie was rationalizing as only a teenage girl running on hormones can.

"I think we should wait until mom gets back." Daphne was resolute.

"Dammit," Maddie thought to herself. Why did Daphne always have to be such a perfect little good girl? After staring at Daphne for a few more seconds, silently pleading with her to get over herself and just take a _short walk_ with this super-cute boy in his super-cute swim trunks, Maddie turned back toward Davis. "Gimme a sec," she said, smiling and tilting her head just-so.

"Sure," Davis turned and walked slowly toward the water.

Maddie snapped her head back toward her sister. "Listen, Daph. If you don't want to take the walk, that's fine. But I really want to, okay. It'll just be for 20 or 30 minutes." Just long enough to find out if Davis' lips were as soft and delicious as they looked, Maddie thought. Oh, how she wanted to kiss him. Just once. Looking at him made her stomach do little flip-flops. He had dark wavy hair like Colt, but was taller and cuter. With way more muscles. He was older than her, too. She bet he really knew how to kiss. "Listen, just stay here, okay?" she said to Daphne in a reassuring voice. "Just hang out in the hammock and watch the waves. Or you can go back to the bungalow and read. But don't go anywhere else, and I'll be back in half an hour. Forty minutes, tops. Okay?"

Daphne took an audible breath in, half pouting, half resigned. "Maddie, I really think you should wait until Mom gets back." She wasn't afraid to stay by herself on the beach with the Rayburns and some of their guests around. She just wished Maddie wouldn't throw her over for a boy every time she got the chance.

"I'll be back way before mom, and then you and I can hang out and write up a song about how beautiful this place is, okay?" Maddie was starting to move toward Davis. After a few steps, she looked back and said firmly, "and DON'T tell Mom!"

Daphne just sighed. Invisible. Again.

She watched as Maddie ran up to Davis and playfully let her hand touch his shoulder while she was saying "let's go!" They exchanged a few more words, and Davis looked over his shoulder and waved at Daphne before they headed south down the beach and soon disappeared into the palm grove.

….

Well over an hour and a half later, Maddie and Davis came jogging back to the beach in front of the Rayburn House. They had found the cove that Davis had mentioned, actually more like a 30 minute walk and a few beaches down from here rather than the next one over, and lost track of time as they were talking and carrying on. And making out a little bit, too, much to Maddie's delight. She had shrieked when she realized how long she'd been gone and took off running back to the inn to find Daphne before their mom returned from Miami.

Too late.

Halfway between where the palm trees thinned out leading onto the Rayburn's beach and the porch of the inn itself, Maddie stopped short. Rayna was just stepping out of the car that she'd hired to take her to and from Miami today. True to her word, she had gone up and back in under four hours. Back in time for lunch.

Maddie quickly looked over at the hammock where she'd left Daphne. Some beer-bellied bald guy was sprawled out napping in it. Well, if Daphne wasn't there, she must be reading in the bungalow. But Maddie couldn't get there without going past Rayna, who had just now turned and seen Maddie running up the beach anyway. She also saw Davis a few steps behind her, but kept quiet about it for the moment.

"Hey Mom!" Maddie yelled, hoping she sounded casual.

"Where's Daphne?" Rayna asked cautiously.

"Back at the cabin," Maddie said, hoping that was true. "We had been hanging out on the hammock, but then she wanted to read, and that guy," Maddie hitched her thumb at the pasty man giving himself a sunburn for Christmas, "asked if he could sit there, so we went inside. But then I got cold so came out here for a few minutes and ran into Davis." She waved back at Davis and hoped he would take the hint and stay away, "so I was just chatting with him for a couple of minutes." Maddie decided that was a lot like the truth, with just the timeline a bit off. What she didn't know was that Rayna, like any parent worth her salt, knew that any story _that_ detailed coming from one's all-too-often-sullen and mono-syllabic teenager was almost certainly somewhere between a white lie and a big fat whopper. Rayna was hoping for the former.

"Well let's go find your sister, then" Rayna said with a practiced faked brightness in her voice that didn't reveal her suspicions about Maddie's story, "and have some lunch. I'm starved." Rayna had missed breakfast due to her desire to get on the road as quickly as possible this morning. As she turned to thank the driver, Maddie ran off ahead of her. "I'll go get Daphne," she said, adrenaline making her words come out in more of a rush than she'd like. "Be right back!"

Maddie ran into the cabin but didn't see Daphne. She dashed quickly through the sitting room and both bedrooms and saw that the doors to both bathrooms were open, and empty. "Daphne," she called, her anxiety levels ramping up. No answer. "Shit!" she thought. Where was her sister?

Maybe she'd gone to the main building to chat with Danny or Sally. She had taken quite a liking to both of them. Or she might be off singing with Robert. They'd heard him playing his ukulele last night and Daphne had impromptu chimed in on a song with him, which seemed to delight him.

Maddie made one more quick survey of the rooms in the cabin and ran back out the door. After briskly circling the place to make sure Daphne wasn't just sitting right outside sulking, Maddie headed back to the Inn, but went in through a side entrance to try to avoid her mother for a few more minutes. Through a half-open door to what appeared to be their office, Maddie saw Sally and Robert talking. No Daphne.

She peeked into the kitchen and saw Danny carrying on with the daytime cooks and servers. No Daphne here either. As she was backing up and walking toward the front entrance where she thought her mother would be waiting, she bumped into Rayna, who had been looking for her. "Where's Daphne? I thought you were going to get her?" Rayna looked confused.

"Um, … yeah." Maddie was stalling for time. "I was. But she's not in the cabin, so I thought she must have come over here to talk with Danny."

"Why would she do that if you had just gone out for a minute," Rayna asked, starting to think that the rush of words Maddie had thrown at her a few minutes ago might be closer to the "fat whopper" end of the "lies teenage girls tell their mothers" spectrum.

"I don't know. She likes him? Maybe she got hungry?" Maddie was reaching for something plausible.

Just then, Danny walked out of the kitchen. "Hi ladies. Lunch is just about ready, but you'll have to head out to the verandah for it in a few minutes."

"Have you seen Daphne," Rayna asked a bit sharply.

"Not since she headed off down the beach about an hour ago," Danny said innocently. "Why? Everything okay?"

Rayna's eyes were fixed on Maddie while she responded to Danny. "An hour ago?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't be telling on her if she wasn't supposed to do that. I'm sure she's fine." Danny was eyeing Maddie now, too. His stare was a little too intense, Maddie suddenly decided.

"Just how long did you leave Daphne in the cabin by herself, Maddie?" Rayna's voice was measured, worry about Daphne creeping in and competing with her irritation with her older daughter.

"Um…" Maddie was stammering, trying to figure out how much to cop to.

"And how did you not see her walking off the property—which I told you both very specifically not to do!—if you were just out there talking with Davis?" Rayna was incredulous, her voice tight and rising as she tried to make sense of all of this. Maddie was her rule-breaker, not Daphne. Why would Daphne leave when Rayna had just told her to stay put?

"Well. I didn't think I was out there that long…" Maddie's voice trailed off. This wasn't going well. "Dammit, Daphne! Hurry up and get back here," she pleaded silently with her sister.

Rayna just stared at her, waiting for an answer that made sense. Danny said, "maybe I should get back to lunch prep." His gaze lingered on Maddie a few extra seconds before he nodded to Rayna and started back to the kitchen. "I'm sure your little girl's fine," he tried to reassure Rayna.

"Which way did she go," Rayna whipped her head to look at him, laser focused, worry beginning to overtake annoyance. Danny just pointed north, opposite of where Rayna had seen Maddie coming from when her car had pulled in. "That way."

Rayna turned back to Maddie. "Out with it."

As Maddie was confessing to Rayna about her extended walk to Pirate's Cove (as she would later learn it was called) with Davis—and her explicit instructions to Daphne to stay either on the hammock or back in the cabin—Sally came over to see what was going on. After a quick talk with the staff and other guests, it seemed pretty clear that no one had seen Daphne after she took off up the beach. She'd been gone closer to two hours than one by now, which was long enough for Rayna's alarm levels to start ratcheting up.

Her clenched voice dropped an octave as her eyes locked with Maddie's: "We are going to have a long talk about this later, young lady. But for right now, we are going to focus on finding your sister."

Maddie nodded her head. Now she was kind of worried, too. It wasn't like Daphne to take off on her own. She really hoped she was okay.

Sally, her daughter Meg who'd just come over for lunch, and a couple of guests spent the next few hours combing the Rayburn House grounds looking for the nine-year-old while Rayna and Maddie walked down to the beach and headed in the direction Danny had pointed them towards. They walked up the coast a few miles, going in and out of the mangroves, and circled back, zig-zagging through dense patches of underbrush. There was no sign of Daphne.

Now back at the Inn as the sun was getting low in the sky, Rayna was in a full-blown panic. "Don't worry," Sally said. "Kids do this kind of stuff sometimes. She probably just got distracted by something interesting and wandered off without paying attention to the time. I'll call my son John and ask him to come over to help. He's the sheriff. I'm sure he'll be able to find her."

Rayna just nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly, wiling herself not to let fall the tears that were threatening.

While they waited for John to arrive, Danny brought her a sandwich. "You need to eat," he said simply. Meg offered her a large glass of wine, which Rayna refused, so Meg drank for her. Rayna just sat at the dining room table, absently picking at the sandwich, trying not to imagine the worst.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

Twenty minutes later, John—clad in his usual work attire: light blue button down shirt, pressed dark blue cotton trousers, sheriff's badge clearly visible on his belt—strode briskly into the dining room where his parents and siblings had gathered loosely around Rayna and Maddie. A few steps into the room, he stopped short as he got his first glimpse of the country star sitting under the chandelier. John wasn't a country music fan—classic rock was more his speed—and while he had a vague sense that he had heard Rayna's name on the radio or tv now and again, he didn't think he would have been able to point her out in a celebrity line-up. But now that he was seeing her here, in the freckled, milky flesh, with her enormous blue eyes and unspeakably sexy windblown hair, he realized what a mistake his indifference to both country music and celebrity journalism had been.

He recovered himself quickly and made his way to the table in a few long steps. "Ms. Jaymes?" his gravely voice conveyed concern and confidence as he reached his hand out to her. She took it in hers, and shook it firmly.

This had the potential to become a missing persons case, and Rayna Jaymes was a distraught mother he needed to help. So John knew that the frisson of both sexual energy and déjà vu that sparked between them as she met his eyes was completely inappropriate and unaccountable, but it caught him up short nonetheless. He'd never met her before, and yet he immediately felt connected to her, felt like he had known her intimately in another time and place. She held his gaze for a long moment, and he cleared his throat, willing himself to focus on the case in front of them. He reluctantly let go of her hand, pulled out the chair next to her, turned it to face her directly, and sat down, all the while his gaze never leaving hers, concern etched in his face.

Rayna, for her part, was impatient to get John up to speed so he could launch an all-out police search for her baby girl. But as he lowered himself into the chair in front of her and their eyes were locked on each other, a small sense of relief crept in beside the worry and fear. She didn't know why, but she trusted this man. It was crazy—probably just adrenaline working over her capacity for reason, she thought—but there was something about his mere presence that made her put her faith in him, made her feel like she had an ally and a friend, someone who would take care of her and her daughters.

John continued to hold Rayna's gaze as he propped his right elbow on the dining room table and began questioning her: When was the last time you saw your daughter? Has she done anything like this before? Had she been talking to anyone in particular whom she might have gone off with? Was she mad about something? Have you talked to her father? Has he heard from her?... So many questions, and he wanted answers quickly. He was a devoted father himself, and he took missing children cases especially personally. Time was of the essence.

Rayna knew he had to ask these things, but she was anxious. She met each question with a polite, but brief, response. She didn't want him to be in here talking; she wanted the police out there finding her daughter. No, Daphne had never done anything like this; she was her compliant one. No, she wasn't mad about anything in particular, but of course she hadn't wanted Rayna to leave today, and she was upset about the wedding being called off, but she was an ebullient, optimistic child. She'd shown no real signs of distress. And yes, she said, in fact she had called Teddy after she and Maddie had come up empty in their search of the beach. He was ready to charter a plane to Florida instantly, but Rayna held him off. If Daphne was upset with her for leaving today, or with Maddie for running off with Davis, she might call Teddy, and he needed to be near a phone, not on a plane. They had agreed that if Daphne wasn't back by lunch tomorrow, Teddy would fly down and together they'd hire private investigators to find her.

"You mentioned a recent break up as part of the reason you had to go to Miami. Is there any chance your fiancé took Daphne?" In John's view, in any missing children's case, you always start with the family. Especially the angry men in it.

" _Ex_ -fiancé," Rayna shot at John, her voice dropping an octave. "But no. Luke wouldn't do that." And while Rayna firmly believed that, she was still pissed at Luke. If he hadn't pulled this publicity stunt, Rayna wouldn't have had to leave today, and Daphne would be here singing and laughing with her mom and sister well into the night.

"Any stalkers?" Now that Rayna had mentioned her breakup, John was vaguely remembering that he'd seen something on the covers of the magazines in the grocery store check-out about the "King and Queen of Country Music and the Royal Wedding that Wasn't" or some such nonsense. Rayna had been in a slinky silver gown, and some redneck in a black cowboy hat was down on one knee, obviously proposing. Given the size the of the stage they were on, and the ring he was holding, he gathered Rayna was more than just a little famous.

"Oh good Lord, no," Rayna said quickly. Country music fans just weren't like that. Sure, she'd gotten her share of creepy letters from guys with filthy minds and terrible grammar, but country fans' misbehavior tended more toward drunken shouts of "show us your boobs!" than kidnapping for ransom. John wasn't convinced, but let it go for now.

Having quickly gathered what information he could from Rayna, John squeezed her hand in a gesture of reassurance he didn't usually offer, but that she very much appreciated. Then he turned to Maddie. She was the same age as his Janie, and he recognized the look of a teenager trying to be grown up but feeling young and vulnerable. "Good," John thought to himself. She'd be less likely to lie to him. Or so he hoped even as his own, lie-filled teenage interview with the police after Sarah's death flashed in front of him. He glanced over at Danny, their eyes locking for a pregnant few seconds, before turning to Maddie and getting her side of the story. She told him everything she thought relevant, from the time Davis had sat down with them on the hammock to the time she got back and saw her mom. She left out the kissing part.

Given how badly she came out looking in her version, John didn't think Maddie was lying, or at least not very much. So at least he had a clear timeline and a possible motive for the younger girl walking off. She'd had a disagreement with her sister. She was feeling rejected, maybe even invisible. At nine years old, she would be just starting to have fits of tweenaged pique. He guessed Daphne had done what melodramatic girls have done forever: decided "fine, if I'm that unimportant to you, we'll see how you feel once I'm really gone," and stalked off. She'd probably intended to come back in an hour or two, and certainly by nightfall, though. That's the part that worried John. Between the tides, the alligators, and the damn pythons people insisted on smuggling into the U.S. and then releasing into the everglades, a lot of bad things could happen to a kid in those mangroves. And that's before you factored in South Florida's drug addicts, sex deviants, and other assorted n'er do wells.

Leaving out the litany of dangers lurking in the mangroves so as not to upset Rayna even more, John ran his theory about Daphne's motives by the country star, along with his concerns that her understandable minor rebellion was lasting so late into the night.

"That doesn't sound like my Daphne at all," she drawled, shaking her head slightly.

"It is our best possibility, though," John said reassuringly. "And at nine years old, she's going to start acting out and testing boundaries. Not only does it make the most sense, it's also the one that has her in the least amount of actual danger." Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Danny staring at him. He could tell Danny was thinking about when he was trying to pull Sarah loose from the rocks she'd gotten caught in after falling out of the boat. John's jaw tightened as he briefly returned Danny's stare, but he couldn't afford to think about Sarah right now.

No, right now he stood up, pulled out his cell phone, and called a friend at the Coast Guard to alert them to be on the look out for the 9 year old, giving a description and telling them he'd get a picture faxed to them as soon as he could. Then he rang his partner Marco, and told him to start organizing the search and rescue boats.

Having set the search in motion, he turned back to Rayna. "You wait here in case she comes back." He pulled out a business card, scrawled his home number next to the pre-printed mobile one, and handed it to her. He wanted Rayna to have both direct lines to him, and not to have to go through his parents and siblings to reach him. "If you hear anything, call me immediately. Until then, stay put. We're going to start looking tonight, but obviously it'll be easier once the sun's up."

Rayna couldn't imagine not getting her daughter back before morning. "That's it? One boat and a phone call to another guy out on the water? My little girl has been gone for _hours_. It's dark. She doesn't know where she is. She could have drowned, or been bitten by something. You need to find her! And you need to let me help! There has to be more that you can do! More that I can do!" Rayna was full-on yelling at John. This wasn't the deliciously calm "taking-Jeff-Fordham-down-six-pegs Rayna." She had officially lost her cool. It didn't happen often, and it wasn't pretty.

John covered half the distance between them as he took a sharp breath in. "You don't know where _you_ are either. Out there, you'll just be in the way. If she comes back to the Inn, you need to be here. We know what we're doing!" He paused. "And it's _two boats_ plus the _Coast Guard!_ "

Rayna shook her head and flung her hands out to her side. She turned away from John for a few seconds, and then slowly brought herself back around to face him, some of the rigidity falling away as she did so. "Sorry," she said shortly, but not insincerely. "Diva dip." She smiled ruefully. Unlike her occasional unprofessional stage "diva moments," she felt she'd earned this one. But she still regretted it.

John was making his way back to her side. He took her gently, but confidently, by the elbow and led her out onto the porch, away from his family and their interrogating eyes. Once they were outside and out of earshot, he let go of her elbow and leaned his head closer to the side of hers, his deep, confident voice barely above a whisper in her ear: "you need to stay strong for your daughter—for both of your daughters—right now. And you need to trust me to do my job." He was looking at her as intently as any person ever had. It wasn't unkind; indeed, the stare drew her in with its concern.

Rayna turned to face him, her eyes wide and a bit damp from unshed tears. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "Daphne's my baby, and I'm scared. And I need you to find her."

John lightly grasped each of her arms just below the shoulder to emphasize his words. "I'm going to find your daughter."

Slowly, Rayna nodded. She believed him. She doesn't know why, but she has complete faith in him. And it's the first thing that's felt like hope in hours.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5:**

As John was heading out of the inn to join Marco in the lead search and rescue boat, he passed by Danny in close conversation with Maddie in the front hall. Danny was taking that unctuous tone his siblings found so grating as he lectured Maddie on the need to take better care of her sister. "You're responsible for her, you know. She looks up to you. And it's your job to keep her safe." Maddie looked like she was going to burst into tears at the scolding, but so far she was holding it together and just nodding and looking at the floor as Danny stared her down.

"Hey, ease up, will ya," John shot a hard look at Danny before striding out to his truck.

Before he could get inside the vehicle, Danny materialized by his side. "I'm surprised _you_ weren't giving her a lecture there, _John_ ," Danny practically sneered.

"Did you see that girl Daphne after Maddie took off?" John shot back, not exactly ignoring the taunt, but not answering it, either.

"What are you implying, John…" Danny's back was up immediately.

"I'm not _implying_ anything, Danny. I'm asking you a question. Did you see her? Did you take her out on the boat again while Rayna was in Miami?" Apparently Daphne hadn't been able to stop talking about how much she'd loved the snorkeling trip. An illicit boat ride to ingratiate himself with the girl is just the kind of thing Danny might do, John thought, seeing in his mind's eye Danny and Sarah heading out on that fateful last trip when they were kids, and that look Danny had shot _him_ when John refused to go along. For a brief moment, both John and Danny silently replayed those fateful seconds of John yelling at Danny not to go out without an adult on the boat.

"What? No. Jesus John. Are you accusing me of something? Because it sure sounds like you're accusing me of something."

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Danny. But you were the last person to see Daphne, and you knew Rayna didn't want Daphne to leave the inn or to go out on the boat without her. So maybe you didn't want to say anything in front of Rayna. But if you took Daphne out and then brought her back, that changes our timeline." John was trying to play it cool, just talking brother-to-brother. But the self-righteousness and suspiciousness seeped through every word.

" _No._ _John_. I didn't take her _out_ on the _boat_. But thanks for calling me a liar." He took a long drag on his cigarette, flared his nostrils, and walked off in disgust.

John expelled an angry burst of air as he watched Danny leave and then fired up the truck. He needed to get to Marco so they could start their search of the mangroves.

…

Twenty minutes later, he and Marco and were setting off on one small, but fast, aluminum and inflatable fender rescue boat, each on one side and a deputy at the helm so the two of them could focus on scanning the water. The second boat with its three-man team was already out searching, taking an area south of the inn just in case Daphne had changed course after she left the grounds. John had also dispatched three foot patrols to scour the beaches, and posted an APB to all of the officers on the roads to be on the lookout for the girl.

It was already quite dark by the time John and Marco got their search underway. Daphne had a long head start, and they had no idea what route the girl had taken after her initial turn north from the Inn. There were seemingly countless bays and coves and inlets to investigate. They swung the search lights back and forth across the water, occasionally catching sight of something promising and letting their heart rates rise in excitement, only to discover on closer inspection a depressing array of trash: baby doll heads, milk jugs, empty wine boxes… "At least the boxes will disintegrate in the water. Our local winos are going eco-friendly," Marco sighed with ineffectual humor.

After three hours of looking further out in the water and close to shore, they'd come up empty, and John decided they needed to call it a night. "We'll get some sleep and start again at first light," he rumbled as they pulled up at the police boat launch. Marco just slapped him lightly on the back and nodded, letting his gestures convey his sympathies with John's frustration. The other boat had pulled in ahead of them; they'd also come up empty. None of the patrol cars had called in any information. The beach foot patrols were making their way back to the parking lot as John and the others arrived. One detective—a young guy barely six months on the force, Smathers or Staley or something John couldn't quite remember—was doing a determined jog over to John.

"Found something," he said, trying to hide the mix of pride and excitement in his voice. He held his hand out to John, a small gold charm bracelet dangling from his fingers. John took the bracelet and thumbed over the tokens hanging from the chain: a guitar, musical notes, a record player, a puppy, and a heart with a "D" etched on it. "I'll show this to Rayna," John said, half to himself, "but it seems like a good guess that our girl dropped it. Where'd you find it?" he asked, his head snapping back up to Deputy Sayers—that was it, _Sayers_ , John remembered as he caught a glimpse of the man's police ID hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

"Found it on a fairly open area of beach, about a half-mile north of your folks' Inn," Sayers said loudly, no longer able to contain his satisfaction at being the one to bring John some concrete evidence. "I went back and restarted my search from the property line and was using a metal detector, just to be thorough. It was a little bit buried by some sand, so that's probably why Ms. Jaymes didn't see it when she did her search." Unlike John, Deputy Sayers was a _huge_ country music fan and knew exactly who Rayna Jaymes was. He was quite keen to find her daughter for her, and once the girl was safe, maybe get an autograph and a photo. Heck maybe she'd even be so grateful she'd give him free concert tickets, possibly even a backstage pass. He wouldn't say any of this to John, of course. But finding the bracelet had to be a point in his favor.

"Thanks Sayers," John said, registering none of the younger man's hopes for his future with the auburn-haired beauty slash distraught mother. "Anyone else find anything?" John scanned the small cadre of officers gathered loosely around him. All he got in return was a muffled chorus of "Nope. Sorry boss." "Not me, sir." "Sorry, sir, no."

John blew out a long breath. "All right. Sayers, good work. Go home. You too, Ramirez and Joseph. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. The rest of you, head back out on foot or car patrols as you were assigned on your shift duty cards. We keep looking until we find her."

John cradled the charm bracelet in one hand, rubbing the other roughly over his eyes and through his hair. It was after midnight, and all they had was a bracelet. He was going to have to call Rayna and tell her the lack of news. This was probably better delivered in person, he decided.

….

When he walked into the family's private combination kitchen/dining room at the Inn, John found Rayna pacing the floor and swiping furiously on her phone as his mother kept her company and tried offering words of encouragement. Rayna froze mid-stride when she saw John walk in, alone, his jaw clenched and his lips pursed. His eyes darted back and forth between Sally and Rayna.

"Hey mom, thanks for waiting up. I need to talk to Rayna for a sec. Why don't you head on up to bed?" John crooned in his best caretaking oldest son voice.

Sally just nodded knowingly and said good-night to Rayna. As she walked by John on her way out, he leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and give her a quick embrace.

Rayna's heart stopped. John was here alone, and he wanted to talk to her alone. She wanted to demand he tell her everything right away, but she was afraid of the answer she might get. So she just stood there, not breathing.

"We didn't find her. _Yet_ ," John emphasized, seeing her beautiful blue eyes go wider than he thought possible.

"Then why are you here? Why aren't you still out there?" Rayna was shouting and pointing out into the darkness, unbelieving.

John raised up a hand in the universal "calm down" gesture. "I've got teams all over town still out looking for her. But we've done what we can do tonight out on the water." His voice was even. John was a man of few words. He preferred action to speeches. He could laugh heartily, and love mightily, but he was not an man to narrate his feelings. So he simply stood there, trying to calm Rayna down and keep her confidence in him up through the sheer force of his gaze and demeanor. Rayna, for her part, is a woman of action and no shortage of words to accompany it.

"What the hell do you mean you've done all you can do? You've done all you can do once you find my daughter." Her face was wild with fear and fatigue.

"Listen. Rayna." John covered the distance between them. "We found something. I'm wondering if it's Daphne's?" He held out the charm bracelet for Rayna to inspect. She took it from him, cupped it softly in her hands and burst into tears.

"Hey. Hey," John nearly sang in his deep, rumbling baritone. He put a hand on each shoulder, rubbing his thumbs slowly up and down. Rayna took a deep breath and stopped her tears, but her head was still down, here eyes focusing on the bracelet in her hands. John put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up so she could look at him. "We're going to find her. I promise. This," he nodded at the bracelet still in Rayna's open palms, "just means we're more sure of which way she headed after she left here. Kids lose things all the time. Doesn't mean anything bad happened to her, okay?"

Rayna desperately wanted to believe him. His confidence was reassuring rather than maddening. Like her father at his best. And she needed to believe that Daphne was all right. She would never forgive herself, or Luke, if anything bad happened to her. She took a long, deep breath in. "I'm trusting you to find my daughter. She and Maddie are more precious to me than anything or anyone in the world." She let herself lean on the strength that wafted off of him in warm waves. She didn't have much choice.

"I know," John said, letting go of her shoulders and moving slowly toward the porch outside. He cocked his head back at her, gesturing for her to follow him. They settled onto the porch swing, facing the ocean they could hear and smell, but not see. It was a cloudy night and just three days past a full moon. If it weren't for the soft glow of the dimmed lights shining out through the dining room windows, they would barely be able to see each other out here despite sitting only inches apart. John knows he needs to head home. See his wife. Get some sleep. But he can't bring himself to leave Rayna just yet. He knows what kind of state he'd be in if it were his Janie who was missing. He'd want to rip someone's throat out, not sit idly and wait for the phone to ring. With Rayna here alone with only Maddie for company tonight, he was afraid she'd start to go stir crazy. He was genuinely worried about her. And maybe also a bit worried about who or what she might bring in over night to help him on this case. Rich people often wanted to "help" in the worst possible ways.

His cell phone rang, and they both jumped. He checked the caller ID. "It's my wife," he said almost apologetically to Rayna as he answered. "Hey, hon. You okay?"

Rayna could only hear John's end of the conversation, but she gathered said wife would prefer that he be home with her rather than babysitting Rayna. When John hung up Rayna said, "I know you have a family to go home to. You don't have to stay here. I'll be all right."

"I know you're tough." John was quickly getting a sense of just how steely her nerves must be. "But no one should have to go through a night like this alone. My wife understands that late nights are part of my job." Actually, while Diana did mostly understand this, it was also often somewhat of a sore spot with her. And she wasn't completely convinced that John wasn't extending his hours due to being a bit smitten with the very sexy distraught mother he was comforting. But Diana's insecurities were usually outweighed by her well-placed faith in him. He'd weather this mild marital storm.

For the next few hours, they sat there. Occasionally, John's cell phone would ring, and Rayna would hold her breath, hoping against hope it was someone saying they'd found Daphne. But the few weak leads that trickled in all quickly led nowhere. In between these bouts of dashed hopes, John and Rayna just talked and talked. Other than Diana, John couldn't think of a woman he'd ever felt so comfortable and open with. It was uncanny. To keep her mind from running through worst-case scenarios, he'd asked her about her siblings.

"Just one," she said, smiling lightly. "My older sister, Tandy."

"You close?"

"We're close, but nothin' alike" Rayna smiled a bit wider, thinking about her no-nonsense, business-minded sister. "She's happiest in a boardroom, takin' charge, makin' deals." Rayna shook her head. Even though she herself was also a dedicated business woman, and committed to seeing Highway 65 thrive, it was the music she loved, not the corporate b.s. At John's prodding, she told him stories of their growing up, their minor sibling rivalries, and their many joint escapades.

As he listened to her, he thought about his own siblings; all so different from each other, yet each one such an essential part of what made their family work. Even now, Sarah's absence was palpable, a barely scabbed over wound in their family tree. Mostly, though, listening to Rayna's evident glee in re-telling some of the hi-jinks she and Tandy had gotten up to in their teenage years despite of—and perhaps to help them get through—the pain of losing their mother, he thought about Danny. The relationship Rayna described with Tandy was the one he'd always wanted, and felt like he'd tried build, with Danny. But Danny had been lost to him after Sarah's death. Maybe this move back home was his second chance. Sitting here tonight, talking to Rayna, thinking about loss and hoping there wasn't going to be more of it with Daphne, he recommitted himself to building his relationship with his older brother into something healthier and stronger.

Eventually, their conversation turned back around to their children, and the particular anxieties of raising teenage daughters. "Your daughter ever lie to you or stay out late and keep you up half the night worryin'," Rayna asked, turning to face him. "Or does you bein' a cop mean she's in when you tell her to be or else?"

John just snorted. "Worrying their fathers is what daughters do." He caught Rayna's glance, and his voice turned serious again. "The worrying and the waiting, though," he said, picturing Diana sitting on the couch with him every time Janie went out, "it's easier if you have someone to stay up with. Even if you've both only been doing this parenting thing the same amount of time, it still feels like doing it together might make you smarter at it."

Rayna thought about Teddy, about when they used to have those late night parenting conversations, sitting up in bed, laughing and fighting about how to handle the latest pre-teen crisis Maddie had presented them with. They had been good parents together. She never wanted to take that from him. She also saw how good Deacon was with her girls, though. Even before he knew about Maddie being his, he'd been wonderful with both girls. And he was growing into an amazing dad. For a second, she wished he were here with her now. "No Rayna," she thought to herself. "Get a grip." Deacon Drama was the last thing she needed right now. But man would it feel good to sink into his arms and let him carry this worry with her. Even in their worst moments, they'd shared each others burdens. It was just who they were.

Rayna had been staring out at the ocean again. But as she brought herself back to focus on the present moment, she tilted her head slightly toward John as she placed her hand on his and squeezed. "Thank you for stayin' here with me tonight." Truth be told, John didn't feel like a poor substitute for Deacon or Teddy. He felt like just what she needed right now.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

John finally headed home around 3 a.m. after convincing Rayna that she needed some sleep to face the coming day. By just after 7.00, the sun was coming up, and John was heading back out to re-join the search. He checked his phone and saw that Rayna had texted him 20 minutes ago to see if he was up. Given what she was going through, it was considerate of her not to call and wake him, John thought. He didn't know many people in her situation who would have shown the same courtesy. He dialed her cell and got her on the first ring.

"Hey," she said anxiously into the phone. "You get some sleep?"

"Yeah, thanks. How 'bout you?"

"Couple of hours, I think. Tossin' and turnin'."

"No word from Daphne, I suppose," John asked knowing the answer. If she'd heard from Daphne, she would have told him first thing.

"No," Rayna said in a defeated tone. "I want to go out and search with you today. Or call in some reinforcements. Teddy and I will foot the bill. It won't cost you any extra."

John chortled, but not unkindly. If she'd said this when he first met her, he would have assumed she was just another spoiled rich princess trying to prove her importance. But after last night, he understood she wasn't just trying to throw her money and celebrity around. Indeed, she was more down-to-earth than most people he knew. "I appreciate that, Rayna, and I understand where you're coming from. I really do. But if you bring in outside people right now, it's going to be a lot of work getting them coordinated with our team that takes too much time away from me getting my guys out there finding Daphne. I'm putting everyone I can spare on this search this morning. Give me until Noon, okay? If we don't have her or a solid lead on her whereabouts by Noon, we'll revisit this. But for now, you stay at the Inn, and for God's sake let me know if you get any phone calls or contact from anyone."

Rayna had been pacing the room as she talked to John. But now she stopped and just stared at the wall for a long minute, weighing her options and trying to keep her emotions in check. "Fine," she said. "Fine. But if you don't have my baby girl by Noon, I'm calling in a private security firm Teddy knows."

John didn't say anything. He didn't want to get into a pissing war with Rayna and her ex-husband, but he also didn't like anyone interfering with how he ran his show.

Rayna read the silence, but didn't back down. "I trust you, John. I know you're doin' your best. But this is my baby we're talking about." Her heart was breaking, and hearing that was what kept John from yelling. Instead he just said flatly, "I know." And he did know. "I'm going to find your daughter for you, Rayna."

…

True to his word, John put every officer he could spare on the hunt for Daphne Conrad, and he widened the search area probably a bit more than was advisable, but he needed to feel like he was doing everything he could. Given where they found the bracelet, he again had his officers focusing most intensively on the beach and mangroves north of the Inn. And he himself was part of the contingent talking to hotel and gas station attendants north—but also up to a mile south—of the Inn, just in case she'd been seen or picked up by someone over night.

90 minutes after he'd gotten off the phone with Rayna, he was at a BP gas station near Rte. 1, venting his frustrations a little more freely than the police manual technically encouraged on a gentleman he knew to be a low-level drug dealer. Mid-harassment, his phone rang. Caller ID showed it was the front desk back at the station.

"Yeah?" John answered the call with one hand as he pushed hard against the man he'd been abusing with the other.

"Hey, John, we got a lead. A fisherman just called in saying he thinks he saw a little girl matching the Conrad girl's description walking on the beach near Matecumbe Key about an hour ago. Guy didn't think anything of it at the time he saw her, but then he was headed up to Plantation Key when he stopped at Bob's Diner and heard Officer Johnson asking Phyllis if she'd seen anything."

"Matecumbe Key?" John's face crinkled in confusion. "That's the wrong direction. It's damn near six miles south of here. How sure is he? And how drunk is he?" John asked irritably.

"Fully sober. And pretty sure. You got a better lead?" The front desk sergeant was pushing his luck.

"Hey, you know what _Bryan_ ," John said, leaning into the name. "Fuck you." John hung up on Sergeant Bryan Ledbetter and turned to Marco, who'd overheard enough to make a good guess about where they were headed. "Matecumbe Key, then?" he said, already getting into the passenger side of John's truck. John just sighed and jumped in the pick-up's cab. He popped his police bubble on the dashboard and floored it out of the BP parking lot. While he was driving, Marco called Sergeant Ledbetter back and got more information about just where in Matecumbe the fisherman had spied the girl.

"Doesn't make sense," John muttered.

"Girls are just women waiting to happen," Marco said knowingly as he hung up with Ledbetter.

John shot him a look.

"What?" Marco asked innocently. "You're seriously going to sit there and tell me you understand women?"

John just shook his head and snorted. No, of course he didn't understand women. But he didn't have to go around bragging about it, either.

Ten minutes later they were to Matecumbe Key, and John slowed the truck way down so they could scan the densely tree-lined strips between the road and the beach. They hadn't been looking very long when they caught a glimpse of Daphne walking at the edge of the trees near the road up ahead. "There she is!" John yelled, pulling the truck over to the side of the road and easing it to a stop. He didn't want to scare her. He got out, walked a few feet in front of the truck and called out to her. "Daphne? Daphne Conrad? It's Officer John Rayburn." He held his badge way out in front of himself. "Your mom is worried sick about you."

Daphne looked hopeful that he was actually a cop and not an axe murderer. Understanding that she had no reason to trust a man she'd never met before, John approached slowly. "It's okay, honey. We're going to take you back to your mom. Back to the Inn, okay?" Daphne was shaking and starting to cry. Seeing the badge and the police bubble, she decided to trust John and just nodded her head.

"You okay, honey? How in the hell did you get this far away from the Inn?" John crouched down a few feet in front of her, meeting her gaze but not crowding her so as not to frighten her more.

"I just started walking and walking. And then I turned around and wanted to go back, but I had crossed the road at one point, and it was getting dark, and I got turned around, and then I guess I got lost in the trees and kept thinking I find the inn right away, but I didn't and so I kept walking but nothing looked right and then I saw these guys and they had guns and stuff and it looked like they were doing something really bad, and then I thought they saw me, and I got scared, so I started to run, and I ran for a long time, but then I got really lost, and I could hear them yelling and I thought they were following me in their boat, and so I went back into the mangroves, and then I found a hideaway where I couldn't be seen, and so I stayed there for a long time, but I couldn't tell if they were gone or not, so I couldn't leave, and it was really dark and eventually I fell asleep waiting for it to be safe, and now I just want to go home."

She'd blurted it out all in one breath, talking faster and faster until her lungs gave out and she had to stop for air. John just turned up one side of his mouth and tilted his head as he held out his arms to her. She fell into them, and he scooped her up and carried her back to the truck, patting her back the whole time and telling her she was okay now. Later, he'd have to find out about these men doing bad things, but for right now, he needed to let Rayna know he'd kept his promise and found her girl.

Sitting in the cab of the truck, he gave Daphne some water and dialed Rayna's number.

"Tell me you have good news," Rayna said by way of "hello."

"I'm going to let someone else tell you," John smiled. "It's your mom" he mouthed to

Daphne as he handed her the phone.

"Mom!" she nearly shrieked. "I'm sorry mom. I love you. I'm okay. I want to see you." And tears were positively streaming down her face now. "I love you, too, mom. So much." John took the phone back from her. Into it he said, "how about I bring her home to you, and you can talk in person?"

John had Daphne back in Rayna's arms in under 20 minutes. Rayna pulled her into an embrace so tight they ended up falling to the grass and just sitting there, with Daphne in Rayna's lap and Rayna's head buried in Daphne's hair, kissing her head and rocking back and forth. Rayna was talking into Daphne's matted blonde mop, "Don't you ever do anything like that again. I love you so much. So much. And if you ever do anything like that again, I will lock you away until you're 50."

Daphne just smiled and kept her arms tight around her mom's waist. "Love you to the moon, mom."

Maddie sat down with them and the three of them rocked back and forth and were soon humming an old tune Rayna and Deacon used to play for the girls when they were little and hanging out on the tour bus with them. Before they'd made it through the second verse a blue sedan pulled up, and the Rayburns' family doctor stepped out of it. Rayna hadn't wanted a scene at the hospital, but she wanted Daphne checked out. And in Islamorada, if you're a friend of the Rayburns—and you're Rayna Jaymes—doctors will still make an honest-to-goodness house-call.

They went to the cabin they were renting and the doctor did a thorough check-up. Other than some scrapes and bruises for which he provided anti-biotic ointment, and sore legs from all the walking and cramped sleeping, Daphne was pronounced in good health. Shaken, scared, and tired, but otherwise unhurt.

While the doctor had been examining her, they tried to get a bit more of the story from Daphne.

"Why'd you walk off in the first place," Maddie asked irritably. "I told you to stay here and that I'd be right back."

Daphne's face was open and unaccusing, but her tone conveyed her hurt. "I was mad that you left me for Davis," she said simply. "And I didn't want to just sit on the hammock by myself. I just walked a little way down the beach, and then I came back, but you still weren't here. So I decided to go the way you two did to try to find you. But I never did. Where'd you go, anyway?"

"You came back?" John asked, wondering why no one had seen her.

"Yeah, but I'd gone up to the road and then back to the cabin. Then I took the other path down off the property when I saw that Maddie wasn't here."

"Well your sister was wrong to leave you—and she _will_ be grounded for that when we get home," Rayna gave Maddie a disapproving look before turning back to Daphne—"but you still shouldn't have left, Daph. Anything could have happened to you."

"I know, Mom. I'm sorry. Really. It was really scary. I won't do it again." Daphne was abashed, but she looked her mother straight in the eye.

"I know baby girl," Rayna kissed her forehead while the doctor was checking her feet. "I know." She'd already decided she wasn't going to punish Daphne for running off. The girl had gotten a serious scare, and the effect would be far more significant than any grounding might be. She'd learned her lesson.

"And I'm sorry I lost my charm bracelet," Daphne said softly, casting her eyes downward. The bracelet had been a gift from her mom and dad when they were still together, and every birthday brought new charms for it. For Daphne, the gold dangles represented a continuity of family that had been threatened by her parents' divorce. It was her favorite possession, and she'd lost it.

Rayna quietly pulled the bracelet from her shorts pocket and placed it in the palm of her hand. She slipped it under Daphne's nose without saying anything.

"You found it!" Daphne squeaked, her eyes wide and gleaming. "Where did you find it?!" She threw her arms around her mom's neck, and then quickly sitting back down, thrust her arm out, signaling to Rayna to fasten the bracelet around her wrist.

"One of my men found it on the beach about a half-mile from here," John said, failing to give Officer Sayers the credit he'd so desperately wanted. There would be no backstage passes to Rayna Jaymes' dressing room in his future.

John wanted to hear more about these "scary men" who had guns and were running things from their boats into the trees, but he decided to wait until tomorrow to ask. Daphne was hungry and tired and needed some time to get settled back with her mom and sister. "No more solo adventures, okay kiddo?" he said to her with an avuncular solemnity.

Daphne just smiled and nodded, her eyelids starting to droop.

John turned to Rayna. "I'll leave you three to talk and get some sleep. But I'll check back in on you this evening." He was eyeing her closely, making sure she was going to take his advice and get some rest herself.

Rayna tilted her head sideways as she gave him a smile that made her blue eyes sparkle like sunshine. Her relief was palpable. Taking him by the arm this time, she walked John over to the door of the cabin and, before he went through it, stopped him and turned him toward her. "Thank you," she said simply. "Thank you." She wanted to say more, but the words caught in her throat. Instead, she embraced him. It was a friendly hug, but one that also conveyed the depth of the gratitude she felt for him, not just for finding her daughter and bringing her home safely, but also for the friendship he'd offered.

In his low rumble, his mouth close to her ear, he said softly, "you're welcome." He returned her embrace and held her a little longer than was strictly speaking necessary. It wasn't every day a sexy superstar offered her appreciation for his help, after all.

When they broke the hug, John looked at Maddie and Daphne curled up together on Daphne's bed, having clearly made up, and nodded to them. With a quick glance back to Rayna, he said, "you three get some sleep. I'll check back on you tonight."

And because John Rayburn is a man of his word, he did stop back at the Inn before heading home for dinner. The Jaymes-Conrad-Claybourne women had tried to get some sleep, but Daphne kept having nightmares, so the afternoon hadn't been very restful. When John arrived, he found them having just decided they should stay put and finish out the full 10 days of vacation they had booked. Rayna thought maybe they should head home for Nashville—Teddy was keen to hug his little girl and see for himself that she was okay—but the girls had persuaded her that they now **really** needed a vacation. Plus, Daphne said, she'd been cheated out of part of hers because "sleeping in the mangroves really sucks."

"Language," Rayna chided, but only mildly.

John chuckled. "Language," he thought. After what they've been through, that's what she's worried about. Actually, he appreciated that Rayna was a big-time celebrity yet clearly trying to raise her children to be well-mannered amid all the hoopla and temptations of money and fame. He still wanted to interrogate Daphne about what she'd seen on her "adventure," but she wasn't quite ready to talk about what happened in the mangroves. And since they would be sticking around for another week, he decided there was no serious rush. He'd just have to come back tomorrow to see how she was doing.

"Hey, you know what I bet would make you feel better?" he asked her, a mischievous tone sneaking into his voice.

"What?" Daphne chirped. She liked John. At her request, he'd been willing to run the police bubble on the drive back to the Inn.

"Homemade ice cream," John's eyes were twinkling.

"Yes!" Daphne bounced in her bed as she said it, and John laughed.

Ten minutes later, Danny was at the door, delivering three kinds of ice cream he'd made earlier in the day, French fries, and some fish chowder Daphne had particularly liked at dinner the other night.

"Thank you," Rayna mouthed to John as he winked at her and let himself out.

"I'll see you girls tomorrow," he said.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

The next morning after breakfast, John was back to check on Daphne, which was important, as he needed information from her. But "checking in on Daphne" seemed equally to be code for "wanting to talk to Rayna." Ambling down to the water, he found a much more relaxed Rayna laughing on the beach as the girls were entertaining her with their antics in the waves. John sat down beside her, noticing again how damn sexy she was with her hair blowing in the ocean breeze and not a spot of makeup on her radiant, freckled skin. "No harm in looking," he told himself. Out loud he asked, "how's our girl doing?"

"Their girl" soon ran up to them and asked John if she could get a ride in his police boat. She'd seen one of the search and rescue boats from her hiding place the night of her big adventure, but she'd been too afraid to come out in the open to wave it down for fear of the scary men she'd been running from.

"Tell you what," John said with mock seriousness. "You can have a ride on the police boat if you'll tell me what you saw while you were out in the mangroves."

Daphne paused a beat, and then nodded her head once, decisively. "Deal" she said, matching the seriousness of his tone. It was all John and Rayna could do not to laugh at her clear effort to act the grown-up.

"Not alone you're not going out there, young lady," Rayna said. "I'm coming, too."

"Cool," Daphne said easily.

"You, too, Maddie," Rayna yelled at her older daughter, calling her in from the surf. One condition of them extending their vacation was that Maddie would spend her time with her mother and sister; no more solo sojourns with her new beau. If she spent time with Davis, it was in the company of Rayna and Daphne. Maddie had clearly not been happy with this part of her punishment, but she knew better than to protest. She'd actually been quite scared when Daphne had been lost overnight. She figured if her mother grounded her for anything less than a month when they got home, she'd be getting off easy.

John radioed for the boat, and soon it was at the Rayburn Inn dock. Marco hopped off and went in search of his fiancé while the four of them climbed aboard. John threw the boat's throttle open and gave Rayna and her girls a bit of a thrill ride around some his favorite spots. They had a fun hour together, at the end of which John got what info he could about the men he'd soon learn were running a drug smuggling operation right under his nose.

And even though Daphne was safe and suffering no ill-effects from her truancy, and he'd gotten all the information he needed from her about what she'd seen on her night out, John dropped by the Inn at least once every day to check on things with his mom and dad and siblings, as you do when there's country royalty in the house. He managed to be pretty low-key about it, and, truth-be-told, Rayna enjoyed chatting with him while the girls were swimming. He made her laugh in a way she hadn't in far too long.

The morning they were scheduled to leave, John stopped by as usual to give Daphne a hug and make sure the three of them had enjoyed their vacation. Rayna appreciated how at ease he was with both girls. He was especially good with Maddie, getting her to talk more than Rayna or Teddy were ever able to these days.

As Danny loaded their luggage into the Town Car they'd rented for the ride back to the airport, John and Rayna exchanged a friendly good-bye hug.

"If you're ever in Nashville, be sure to look us up," Rayna drawled, tilting her head slightly as she slid her over-sized sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose. Through the dark lenses she continued to gaze at John, the strange sense of déjà vu that had been niggling at her all week getting stronger by the second. Suddenly she thinks she's figured out why he seems so familiar to her. "You ever been to Texas?" she asked, smiling broadly and pushing the glasses up on her head so they pulled the hair back from her face. She flashed fondly a night from what seems like a lifetime ago. She was still an opening act, playing small-time gigs, touring honkey tonks and county fairs all over the South. And she and Deacon were fightin', again. He'd gone off to drink for a night—or a few days—with some of the roadies after a small, but energetic, show in Austin. She'd been on an adrenaline high after they'd harmonized so perfectly on some new stuff, and she wanted to celebrate with him. But he took off in a huff about something, and she'd ended up at the bar with a couple of local back-up singers who'd been happy to join her and Deacon on-stage in exchange for beer money. They'd mingled with some other patrons who wandered in and out.

She hadn't thought about that night in years. The details were fuzzy, especially as she'd tied a few on herself, but she'd spent the hours between her last set and last call chatting up and dancing with the nicest young man. He'd been so polite and sweet at first she couldn't figure out what he was doing in a bar. But after a few drinks, they were carrying on like old friends. He'd never "tried" anything with her, just swung her around the dance floor and attempted, with little luck, to teach her how to shoot pool. He'd been sexy and friendly in an innocent sort of way, mentioning nineteen or twenty times that he had a girlfriend he was very committed to back in his hometown. Just, you know, so Rayna didn't get any ideas about where the night might be headed.

And here in Islamadora, the more she looked at John, the more she thought maybe, if she subtracted twenty years off his face and frame, he could've been that guy. She'd remembered his name as Alex or Eric or something like that. But it could have been John. She'd only been 18 at the time. A lot had happened since then. Easy to mix up a name.

"Excuse me?" John asked, flustered.

"You ever been to Texas," Rayna laughed as she asked him again.

"Uh, no. Should I have been? Should I go?"

"No, huh?" Rayna asked, slightly disappointed. It would have been too improbable to have been true. But it felt right. He was so familiar to her.

John just looked at her, confused. Rayna smiled shyly. "Never mind," she said, feeling too silly about the idea now to tell him the story of Alex or Eric. "But yeah, you should go some time. Austin's amazin'. Best city in the South, after Nashville, of course."

"I'll have to take your word on that," he rumbled, holding her gaze a bit longer before finally opening her car door and ushering her inside.


End file.
